5 Reasons You Are Failing With Traffic Exchanges

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Jon Olson

 

Traffic exchanges have been around for almost two decades now. They were ‘social’ before social was the in thing. They were community based, user driven content way before any of the massive social media companies existed. They do an amazing job of catering to the free and low cost advertiser and it’s clear, growth is still there after all these years.

The problem though is…Attrition.
People come and go all the time. They get lost in all the information and feel like they are failing before they even get started. So I put together 5 reasons why this is and hopefully, you can learn how to leverage and use these to your advantage and absolutely crush it in this awesome business.

1. We Give Up Way Too Soon – As I mentioned above, this is one of the biggest reasons people fail in this business. I cannot tell you how many times over the years, a new traffic exchange user jumps online and is all fired up. They are excited to get going and seem to go full throttle into this business. This lasts about a month, maybe two and then you don’t hear from them again. This business is about relationships and people, and it takes time to build that. You can be right on the cusp of something great if you stick to it, don’t give up!

2. We Use Standard Affiliate Pages Or Worse – D.U.S.A.P. is a fun little acronym we came up with years ago which stands for Don’t Use Standard Affiliate Pages. These are the pages most online opportunities and other traffic exchanges give their members to promote. They are generic, not very exciting and give no personal branding value to the promoter. Stop it! Use tools like AdKreator and make your pages POP! Stick out from the crowd and stop being like every other affiliate out there!

3. They Aren’t Being Remarkable – Similar to the previous point, boring pages suck in this business. Something I always do when I’m designing a splash or squeeze page is I ask myself…Will this make me stop surfing and take action if I saw it? 9 times out of 10, your ‘cute little floating unicorn’ splash pages aren’t going to cut it. Think like an advertiser. Think shock and awe. Don’t just use the same old ‘Make Money Here’ headlines, engage your audience and make your pages REMARKABLE!

4. We Do Not Follow The Two B’s – The two B’s of the T.E.’s – Brand & Build! Brand your name, build your list. Let’s put it this way, if you aren’t using Rocket Responder or a similar service, you are wasting your time in the traffic exchanges. If you aren’t making sure YOUR name and brand is out there in front of people 24/7, you are wasting your time. Build your mailing list everyday. Brand your name everyday. It’s really that simple.

5. We Don’t Use The Tools Available – Twitter, Facebook, social chat, blogs, Spreecast…All these free tools at your finger tips that for some reason traffic exchange users never want to adopt into their business. Traffic exchanges users are notorious for not using the same stuff the rest of the world does. When we brought social chat to the traffic exchanges years ago, it was met with lots of resistance. When I talk about Twitter in Traffic Exchange Live, I am usually told that ‘It’s too complicated and I don’t use it…’ Stop it! Get out there, roll up your sleeves and learn this stuff. It works, it’s powerful, it’s 2015!

Bonus Reason Number 6 – We expect ‘results’ over night. I have said this for years in Traffic Exchange Live, the only difference between me and someone else that is just getting started is I’ve been doing it longer. That’s it. No special handshakes required, no ‘good ol’ boy’ networks to kiss butt with. This industry rewards consistency. Show up everyday, be remarkable and focus on building your list and brand…The ‘results’ will be there.

After 18 years in these programs I get excited when I see the thousands of new surfers joining every day. It tells me, the future is very bright. What we need to do as an industry is train and teach people to not give up after a week or two. We need to focus on long term business models rather than flash in the pans and we will see some awesome things going forward in 2015.

I’d love to hear your feedback and your thoughts on why people fail in this business! Post your comments and let’s get the discussion going…